Last Saturday and Sunday we were fortunate enough to pass upon one of Argentina’s pre-eminent Street Artists, Martin Ron, someone who is no stranger to London having painted alongside ROA in Hanbury Street and the iconic Village Underground in the past, at work in Ely’s Place in the Truman Brewery grounds. Martin Ron paints hyper-realistic images, which often incorporate elements of fantasy or machinery, making for his own distinct style of urban surrealism .The murals he paints are generally on a huge scale, making this a rather small work for the artist, but still taking him some two days to complete as he formulated the piece almost entirely by delicate brush strokes.

The piece depicts a mans head set in a circular checkerboard pattern, which is a recurring style in Martin Ron’s works, and additionally in this case really adds to the 3D effect in the piece. The top of the mans head is in flames, which relates to a common theme in his murals, depicting the relationship between humans and the systems which control our lives, portraying a loss of reality through over complication in trying to rule the world around us. In this piece the dominant mail figure appears to have overloaded and burst into flames, having succumbed to the pressure of these elements.

What a delight it was to get to see this very talented artist at work and to gaze upon the finished creation. Martin Ron is currently working on a large scale collaboration with fellow Argentinian Street Artist Jiant in Hackney Wick, which we will be sharing with you upon its completion.

Martin Ron at work on Saturday.

Martin Ron at work on Sunday.

The superb finished work. Hyper-realist surrealism at its best.